"Something Else Entirely: The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey" Opening Reception

Last night the Society of Illustrators hosted the official opening reception for the exhibition "Something Else Entirely: The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey." The crowd was enthusiastic; the artwork was inspired.

The display case houses published Gorey rarities, including copies of old copies of TV Guides graced by Gorey illustrations.

The real treasure, of course, is the original Gorey art:

Wouldn't you just know it? The cover art for A Clutch of Vampires is in the archives here.

Note:  There's still time to celebrate Edward Gorey's centenary. "Something Else Entirely: The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey" continues its run at the Society of Illustrators in New York through January 4.

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A Treasury of TV Jibes

During the heyday of TV Guide magazine, TV Jibes was a popular feature, consisting of television-themed cartoons created by some leading practitioners of the art. A dozen pages of these cartoons were collected in A Treasury of TV Jibes, which was included as an insert with the magazine. Hence there is no price on the cover. Alas, there is also no copyright date.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Jibes

Scan by Tom Bloom

Even without a date of publication, we know TV Jibes couldn't have appeared before Ronald Searle's TV Guide cover of 1968 featuring Johnny Carson, and most likely it didn't appear immediately afterward either. Hence, a reasonable estimate for the publication date is 1970.

Johnny Carson
Ronald Searle
TV Guide, August 31-September 6, 1968

Here then is the rest of this issue of TV Jibes, the whole kit and kaboodle, as heroically scanned by Tom Bloom.

   TV Jibes                                   The Young Set
J. B. Handelsman                                  Claude Smith       
Henry Martin                              Charles Rodrigues
Charles Rodrigues                                   Chon Day        

TV Jibe:  Debatable Tactics                                   TV Jibes     
             Brian Savage                              Copper[?]          Hageman[?]
                                                                 Al Kaufman

         TV Jibes                                 TV Jibe:  The Younger Set
Charles E. Martin                                       Sidney Harris      
Henry Martin                                                          
Charles Rodrigues                                                        

TV Jibe:  It Must Be Football                                  My Fellow Americans...
Paul Peter Porges                                                 Brian Savage

TV Jibe:  And Now a Pause for the Program...             TV Jibe:  An Evening at Home
          Sidney Harris                                             Charles Rodrigues
                                                                     Paul Peter Porges
                                                                     Larry [Terence Parkes]

TV Jibes                                     TV Jibe:  Poor Reception
Charles Rodrigues                       Larry [Terence Parkes]
Mort Gerberg                                       Joseph Farris
Val                                           Charles Rodrigues

Note:  First off, my sincere thanks to Tom Bloom for this contribution. As I've already called his scanning heroic, I haven't left myself too much else to add. This is Tom's seventeenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

We are not alone. Postino writes informatively about this very TV Jibes cartoon booklet in the blog Insomnia Notebook here.

Cover artist Ronald Searle's extensive TV Guide work is surveyed in Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here. There's no mention of TV Jibes, though, but that could change. 

Numerically speaking, Ronald Searle's centenary closed on March 3, which marked 101 years since the artist's birth. Nevertheless, since the pandemic interrupted any proper recognition of his achievement, I have taken the lead from the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover, Germany, and will continue to celebrate his centenary. Indefinitely.

Three of the cartoonists shown above in the pages of TV Jibes are unfamiliar to me. I will tentatively identify them as Copper, Hageman, and Val, although I am not sure I'm reading the first two signatures correctly. Does anybody recognize the cartoonists or know a little something about them? Do tell.

Also--can anyone tell me with which issue this insert was distributed? I'm kind of a stickler for these things, especially when they're of no importance.

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Ronald Searle's Sunset Strip

Ronald Searle's Sunset Strip is an unusual illustration for the artist, a dizzying commercial landscape unpopulated with any figures or even automobiles. It was created for TV Guide in the 1970s and the original art was listed by Taraba Illustration Art as early as 2012.

Ronald Searle
Sunset Strip
Original art
TV Guide

Detail

Ronald Searle
Taraba Illustration Art, LLC
Accessed November 18, 2012

Dead Link

Fortunately for us, contributor David from Manhattan was able to sort out the TV Guide publication history. He writes:

Searle illustrated an article, "Sunset Strip—Decline of a Legend" back in June 22, '74. Not TVG's finest hour with how it was cropped. Dimensions are 13 3/4 x 10, paper laid on board. He wrote a caption at bottom, and applied his handstamp on back, but not signed. Which leads to a question for you. Amidst the urban jumble, there appears to be what looks like a large "RS" with an arrow pointing to it. A bit of sly humor on the artist's part, or is the current owner getting carried away?

Here again is the art:

Ronald Searle
Sunset Strip
Original art
TV Guide, June 22, 1974

What irritates me most about TV Guide's reproduction is actually not how severely the image was cropped—I think it was created with that possibility in mind—but rather how much of Searle's exuberant detail was muddied in the printing process.

Ronald Searle
"Sunset Strip—Decline of a Legend"
TV Guide, June 22, 1974

TV Guide's crop line cuts directly between these two towers. Even in the preserved right half, the drawing's frenetic energy was largely lost anyway in the process of printing:

Detail

Is there a hidden RS? Anything's possible.

In Searle's handwriting

Yes, Searle's American agent John Locke had a prestigious BUtterfield-8 phone number. This prefix was culturally immortalized by the John O'Hara novel and subsequent movie of that name. Locke typically would answer his phone by saying, "8010."

Note:  Thanks to David from Manhattan for all the scholarship he puts into his contributions here. This is David's thirty-sixth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.

For more on Searle's TV Guide work, tune in to Matt Jones's 2007 post "Magazine Illustration Part 1: TV Guide" on Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here.

Ronald Searle's centenary will be celebrated on Tuesday, March 3. As any fule kno.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Ronald Searle

TV Guide

David from Manhattan

Attempted Bloggery's Sundowning Index

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Arnold Roth On Ice

The National Hockey League (NHL) begins its 2017-2018 season today. Some forty years ago, cartoonist Arnold Roth envisioned the sport besieged by an energy crisis limiting the availability of ice. Fortunately, he had a practical solution at the ready.

Arnold Roth, Energy Crisis
"No Fueling, the Crisis is Here" by William Johnson
Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1973, page 36
Inscribed "for Peter & Maria Rathbone/June 4th 1977"

Publication information added October 31, 2017

Arnold Roth
eBay Listing Ended May 17, 2017

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Watercolor-Art-ICE-HOCKEY-PLAYER-by-ARNOLD-ROTH-New-Yorker-Cartoonist-/121701828243?hash=item1c55fe8693%3Ag%3APEAAAOSwLVZVoX6D&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Arnold Roth
eBay Item Description

An undated Roth drawing for TV Guide depicts the NHL as a number of "cops"—one a giant—policing the sport. This may be a reference to league efforts to curtail the violent fights that threatened the sport's popularity.

Arnold Roth, NHL "Cops"
Original art, TV Guide

Arnold Roth
Chris Beetles Gallery Listing as of October 1, 2017

https://www.chrisbeetles.com/gallery/sports/american-sports/nhl-national-hockey-league-cops.html

Finally, a December 1999 illustration by Mr. Roth for Sports Illustrated depicts some wildly exaggerated Hockey Cheats with various nefarious implements of game disruption.

Arnold Roth, Hockey Cheats
Original art, Sports Illustrated, December 1999

http://www.whyy.org/91FM/RT/roth/roth2.html

Note:  It's hard to believe, but this is the first appearance of Arnold Roth on this blog. Careful readers may have noted the tantalizing appearance of a numeral 4 in the corner of the Energy Crisis artwork. This strongly suggests that there are at least three other drawings in the series out there somewhere! It also suggests, of course, that Energy Crisis was published as part of a set and not created specifically for the enjoyment of the Rathbones as the eBay seller seems to believe. Cartoon detectives, you know what you have to do.

To my mind, no blog post about illustration art is truly complete without specific and scrupulous publication information. Therefore I invite students of hockey illustration art and members of local Arnold Roth societies to provide this blog with the missing publication history for each of these hockey-themed illustrations. For that matter, I'm always eager to show scans and photos of other original art by Mr. Roth and by other New Yorker artists on just about any subject, hockey or otherwise.

October 31, 2017 Update:  On Twitter, Cary Moy has identified the publication source of the Energy Crisis artwork as Sports Illustrated's issue of December 3, 1973.

Arnold Roth
"No Fueling, the Crisis is Here" by William Johnson
Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1973, pages 34-35

https://www.si.com/vault/issue/43383/40/2

Arnold Roth, Energy Crisis
"No Fueling, the Crisis is Here" by William Johnson
Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1973, page 36
Inscribed "for Peter & Maria Rathbone/June 4th 1977"

Arnold Roth
"No Fueling, the Crisis is Here" by William Johnson
Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1973, page 36

https://www.si.com/vault/issue/43383/42/2

Arnold Roth
"No Fueling, the Crisis is Here" by William Johnson
Sports Illustrated, December 3, 1973, page 39

https://www.si.com/vault/issue/43383/44/2

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Hockey

Attempted Bloggery's Slippery Index

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